I spent four years as Forbes' Girl Friday, which to me meant doing a little bit of everything at once. As a member of the Forbes Entrepreneurs team, I looked at booming business and startup life with a female gaze. I worked on the PowerWomen Wealth and Celebrity 100 lists, keeping my ears pricked and pen poised for current event stories--from political sex scandals to celebrity gossip to international affairs. In 2012 I helped to put two South American women on the cover of FORBES Magazine: Modern Family star Sofia Vergara (the top-earning actress on U.S. television) and Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff, who is transforming the BRIC nation into an entrepreneurial powerhouse. Prior to Forbes I was at the Philadelphia CityPaper, where I learned more than any girl ever needs to know about the city's seedier trades. I studied digital journalism at The University of The Arts.
I left Forbes in November, 2013, to pursue other interests on the West Coast.

Why We Need To Stop Bemoaning The 'End of Men'

By now, it should go without saying: the redefining of the “role” of women means the redefining of the “role” of men. Women are pulling more weight in the office and men are pitching in around the house.

But let’s be clear on one thing, sisters: the fact that women make up a slightly larger percentage of the workforce and are receiving more undergraduate degrees and even, in some cases, are out-earning our lovers, brothers and husbands, does not mean the end of men.

“We are all evolving. It’s the labels and judgments we place on each other that are not evolving.”

2010’s Atlantic story “The End of Men” was just the beginning. In the landmark (and oh-so-emailed) piece, Hanna Rosin painted a pretty picture of the rise of women: “Man has been the dominant sex since, well, the dawn of mankind. But for the first time in human history, that is changing—and with shocking speed.” But the flip side to all this upward mobility for the ladies, she contends, is that men are left insecure, frustrated and dejected by the sudden shift in authority roles, particularly within nuclear family units. In one anecdote, Rosin shares a presentation at a father’s support group:

“What is our role? Everyone’s telling us we’re supposed to be the head of a nuclear family, so you feel like you got robbed. It’s toxic, and poisonous, and it’s setting us up for failure.” He writes on the board: $85,000. “This is her salary.” Then: $12,000. “This is your salary. Who’s the damn man? Who’s the man now?” A murmur rises. “That’s right. She’s the man.”

In her 2010 book, Manning Up: How the Rise of Women Has Turned Men Into Boys, writer Kay Hymowitz went a step further, hinting that a generations worth of men (mine) that were raised in a culture of Girl Power and “Bring Your Daughter To Work Day” may be so conflicted over gender roles and their own value to women that they are decidedly “less than” men.

“Today’s pre-adult male is like an actor in a drama in which he only knows what he shouldn’t say. He has to compete in a fierce job market, but he can’t act too bossy or self-confident. He should be sensitive but not paternalistic, smart but not cocky. To deepen his predicament, because he is single, his advisers and confidants are generally undomesticated guys just like him.”

It’s true. We want our men smart, but not cocky. Protective, but not patronizing. Driven, but not a dick. And we also want him to help us out when we’ve got an eight pm meeting and there are kids that need to get fed. In other words, we want a decent human being to pick up the slack where we can’t, provided we pick up the slack for him. Seems like a reasonable trade.

So why is asking for equality, the “end of men?” Why is asking our partners to be partners emasculating?

Because despite the case-by-case expectations of equality in gender roles, culturally we haven’t let go of the paternalistic authority of men over women. And stories about the “decline” of our men-folk aren’t making things better for any of us.

How a thinking person could champion a woman’s strides towards equality in the same breath that they criticize men for becoming less than as a result is beyond me. The double-standard—that a women can and must demand her seat at the table to be a real woman but that a man giving up his to clear dishes makes him less than a real man—is just so outdated.

Let alone the fact that women only hold 3.2% of the top CEO positions and, across the board still earn roughly 79 cents to the dollar. Oh, and we’re still the only ones who can bear children (thanks, science!). The pages of Forbes aren’t yet filled with feminine faces. ForbesWoman still exists. We may be winning some battles of the sexes, but we still haven’t won the war.

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“But who made it a war anyway?” I agree with you completely. Who made it a war? I believe it was the ‘have-not’s’ that declared war against the ‘haves’. The ‘have’s’ included items such as equal pay for equal work, recognition of ability, etc. We (Americans) are moving from an agricultural / hunter-gatherer society to a technical society that does not rely a lot on physical strength or prowess in hunting for dinner. A male is no longer required to be the protector, but genetically we’re still wired to do so. Society has beaten into our heads the ‘man of the family’ routine – when Dad deployed while in the military, he appointed his son to be the ‘man of the family’. There’s a deeply rooted gene (I believe) that makes us ‘men’ and somewhat aggressive in the business world, the same world we’ve sometimes classifed as ‘dog eat dog’ – sounds survivalist to me! Where are the women in this ‘dog eat dog world’?? They’re right there next to us – slugging it out, one dog at a time but because there isn’t a physical threat, there is equality of ability, equality of work that women are asking to have equality of compensation applied. When that happens, the ‘man gene’ kicks in and establishes some sort of supremecy and that leads to office games of putting the woman in her place – in what place? The home, caring for the family, raising the children, being the half of the team that takes care of a majority of the domestic duties of any household. The man, what’s he doing? Typically sitting on his rear-end watching television because there’s food in the freezer and meat for the winter and fuel for the fires to allow them to survive the winters in suburbia. It’s not men that are changing, it’s the role of men and the need to identify the root-cause of the basic conflict within their role as ‘men’. We don’t have to hunt our food, or kill sabertooth tigers anymore. We are one-half of the team that procreates to produce offspring. We can also be one-half of the team that raises the children in a balanced lifestyle of sharing, providing, loving, and living. Who earns more? Who cares as long as it’s going to the family or the couple that is together. Who does the heavy lifting? Well, the partner that can do it based on body size and ability. But guys, here’s a secret – when two people lift something heavy, it’s easier for you. If it’s too heavy for your partner, chances are it’s too heavy for you too and all your going to do is hurt yourself and you’ll be less able to do the things you need to be doing anyway. I’m a guy, I’m a typical guy. I’m 58, 6’2″, 240 pounds and in great shape. I drink beer, I eat steaks. I mow the yard and clean the garage. I have handguns and long guns. I haven’t had to hunt game to feed the family since I thought I did when I was 13. I’ve got a partner in life that is 5 years older than me and she loves me more when we’re in the garden together weeding, or watching a movie and we’re both crying. I’m a man, I have physical proof and I’m not ashamed of loving, sharing, and being with my woman. She’s intelligent, she has valid opinions and thoughts and she also loves to love in every respect. Yeah – if this is life for the ‘end of men’ – bring it on!

I somewhat agree with you, however I feel that yes, a man shouldn’t expect a woman to be in the kitchen, etc, but a man should also have the choice as to whether he can be the bread winner too. There are many men out there who would rather be the stay at home partner, and there are many women who would rather be that as well. What bothers me is that the feminists who make articles like “The End of Men” is that they preach how women shouldn’t be the one to clean the house, and they should have the man do that. But what bothers me is that then takes the choice AWAY from the man. I am fine with a 50/50 relationship, where both spouses can work, and it’s fine if they make relatively the same amount, and then both commit the same amount of effort. Say, the husband cooks tonight, then the wife cooks tomorrow, etc. That is the kind of relationship that should be. However there are also people who don’t want that, me personally being one of them. I would rather be the primary bread winner, or have a 50/50 split, not because I think women are inferior, but because I don’t like to depend on someone else, just as another women may have the same view as me. There are plenty of people who would rather have their wife earn more, or their husband earn more, and that is fine. We should be shooting for the “choice” or the 50/50 method of mariage personally, and articles like “The End of Men” are taking that choice aspect away. I have read some other articles similar to this one criticizing articles like “The End of Men” and in many of them, they are talking about how by stressing women need to be the bread winners, it takes away a choice from both men AND women. It basically says women should, and men shouldn’t, which is just silly to me. It should be promoting the message that you can now choose to be the bread winner, or the one cleaning the house, and there is nothing wrong with either. That goes for both sexes.

Meghan, I’ve been reading your columns for a year now and this is your finest. Who made it a war anyway? Indeed.

I see the flip side of this in my marketing to moms business. A recent survey of moms revealed that a quarter of moms “fear” their partner is a better parent. Why on earth would a woman “fear” having a competent husband to father her kids? I suspect the survey creators phrased it thus, but every time we pit men against women in a manufactured competitive landscape, we all lose.

Simone de Beauvoir famously said: ”Man is defined as a human being and a woman as a female – whenever she behaves as a human being she is said to imitate the male.”. The logical corollary of this is that if mans becomes the equal of a woman he is no longer human, i.e. a man.

Meghan you started out strong, nailing the whole End of Men argument and tearing apart Hymowitz.

“We are all evolving. It’s the labels and judgments we place on each other that are not evolving.”

Amen, girlfriend, with you 100%.

But after all this great prose saying that the women sociologists-psychos like Hanah Rosen and Kay Hymowitz who are so determined to take down men rather than work with them as a force for good (Yeah, this whole thing is a bit too Star Wars for my taste with us guys as the “dark side” for sure), my BFFL Meghan you go completely under on me. Just after bemoaning labels she goes right back to the well…..

I agree with so much said here. Who started the war anyways? I hope people stop thinking of things in terms of war of genders, but as long as we are going with that metaphor- yes our society still has a way to go before long instilled ideas about men and women stand in the way of equality. But I think you are right in saying we need to work with men for the better of all, there is no against. As the economy suffers and so do many hard working families- there are plenty of men and women who find themselves multitasking more than ever and juggling between career and family. In general even before the economy took a turn for the worse, I think this generation is finding that it often takes two incomes to have the same thing the last generation maintained with one. And while I still think that because change is slow, today’s generation of women will probably have to bear the brunt of the multitasking, households will in general find themselves having less time to worry about what role which partner should be playing. I guess that is progress when you think about it in terms of where we were twenty years ago even. Lisa Hickey wrote an article for The Good Men Project in response to this one where she says a similar thing: What if They Had a Gender War and No One Came http://goodmenproject.com/newsroom/what-if-they-had-a-gender-war-and-no-one-came/

And more than anything else, you used the old feminist BS of ‘there are men at the top 1%’. Guess what, there are much more men than women at the bottom 1% as well, in prisons and at the streets, but nobody sees that as sexism. Nobody tries to solve this. When men have problems it is there fault, when women have problem it is discrimination.

Feminism is equality for women, where women have the lower hand and ignoring all the cases in which men have the lower hand. Thus feminism is defacto discrimination and ignoring men’s problems and rights.

We should find a way to fight the current state of decline, but you and the other feminist drones will not tell us what is emasculating and what is not. This is something for us to determine, not you.